Book Reports

Produced in conjunction with the groundbreaking show in Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, When We See Us is a chronicle on modern and contemporary African art and artists. The book is comprised of gorgeous paintings and poetry and contains profound insight on process. The exhibition is on view at Zeitz MOCAA through October 31, 2023.

Large, imposing, concrete structures are the hallmarks of Brutalist architecture—a movement that continues to polarize to this day. The Brutalists is a straightforward survey set in black and white with a focus on the designers and architects including icons of the genre like Marcel Breuer, Ricardo Bofill, and Le Corbusier.

Oklahoma City native Ralph Ellison is best known for the book Invisible Man, however his photography work is extensive. Photographer rounds up about fifty years of work that provides a peek into Ellison’s creative process, private life, and Black life more generally in 1950s America. Minimally designed throughout, the editors let these gorgeous and sometimes haunting images create the narrative.

A visit to any one of Donald Judd’s outposts (in Marfa or New York) is often a pilgrimage. They’re not easy to get to, and they require a fair amount of pre-planning. While a book may not do these sparse yet sumptuous interiors justice, these beautiful photographs and explanatory essays by Judd create a context informing even the most ardent minimalism enthusiast.

Nowadays art parks abound in cities across the globe, from Meow Wolf to Storm King. However, in 1987, Luna Luna was the first of its kind. More than thirty of the most interesting artists working in the late 1980s—including Salvador Dalí, David Hockney, and Jean-Michel Basquiat—contributed to a fully functioning amusement park, rides and all, in Hamburg, Germany. Luna Luna is a must-have book for the contemporary art lover’s library, down to the glow-in-the-dark spine.

This book is a compilation of greatest hits from some of the best street photographers across the globe documenting every day life. The strength of Reclaim is its focus not just on Western street photography but candids from photographers on the ground in places like India, Thailand, and Turkey.

Johannes Vermeer continues to be one of the most influential painters to ever live—despite the fact that he produced only thirty-seven works in his career. Vermeer is a companion to the blockbuster exhibition in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and provides a close-up view and dissection of his paintings, exploring themes, similarities, and studies on Vermeer’s use of perspective.

This super-fun, giftable book is a museum unlike any other in that its collection is sourced from curators, art historians, and artists from around the world. Spanning the Paleolithic era to the art of our time, The Art Museum is an incredibly informative and beautiful compendium of art and objects.

This catalogue accompaniment provides the information, artwork, and artist biographies for the major exhibition of contemporary Mexican art opening September 2022 at Oklahoma Contemporary Art Center. La casa successfully makes the case that Guadalajara, Mexico, is a center of visual art, design, sculpture, and cuisine.

After a visit to a cosplay convention, fashion photographer Thurstan Redding became hooked on the idea of playing dress up. His three-year journey culminates in a book of stunning imagery where themes of escapism, art-making, and personal transformations abound. Within the pages, a group of Wonder Women, Alice in Wonderland, and various anime characters sit for Redding in their bathrooms, bedrooms, and kitchens.

Some histories demand to be known. Such is the case with the Green Box inaugural book-club selection Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970), in which author Dee Brown transformed the way Americans understood “manifest destiny.” The Ute and Cheyenne and Arapaho figure prominently, as do all of the major tribal entities and leaders, and the important battles—and massacres—that occurred west of the fabled 95th Meridian. Once read, this bell can’t be unheard.

The Green Box book club discussion will take place on Friday, July 14, 2023 at noon, at Church in the Wildwood, Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, which is located in the Ute Pass region of the Rocky Mountains. Oklahoma artist Brent Learned, a descendent of Black Kettle, will help lead the discussion.